Four Species of Ontario Ladybugs
This winter, I wanted to make a cute ladybug print to submit to the Ottawa School of Art’s biennial exhibition. As inspiration, I had a photo of two ladybugs sitting on a bean pod on my plot at an urban farm where I am undertaking a multi-year art-research project on regenerative agriculture. Using iNaturalist, I learned that my ladybugs were not native but were Asian multi-coloured ladybugs, Harmonia axyridis (Figure 1a). Looking back through my photos, I found a different species – a seven-spot ladybug, Coccinella septempunctata, also an alien species from Europe (Figure 1b).
Ladybugs, often called lady beetles, are members of the Coccinellidae family of insects in the order Coleoptera (Beetles). These species are generally brightly coloured, often red with black markings. As predators, ladybugs are natural control mechanisms for plant pests, especially aphids. Even the little alligator-like larvae are voracious consumers of pests. Even though native species are hard workers, as we have seen so many times before, agriculturalists wanted a “new and improved” version and foreign species were introduced.
I wondered where our native ladybugs were and why there were so many aliens on my plot. I learned that the native two-spotted ladybug (Adalia bipunctata), has significantly declined and the nine-spotted ladybug (Coccinella novemnotata) has disappeared from Ontario. The seven-spotted ladybug from Europe was the most common species in Ontario in the last decades but it too has now been displaced by its more aggressive Asian counterpart. Scientists don’t know for sure, but evidence suggests that the rapid shifts in ladybug populations could be the result of competition by the aggressive Asian variety, who may also be more more able to adjust to climate change and shifting agricultural patterns.
I remember red with black spotted ladybugs from my childhood. But I never counted the spots. I hope this blog will encourage you to count the spots on ladybugs you see. Keep an eye out for native species but the truth is, that in our changing world, any ladybug is better than no ladybug. If you see ladybugs, why not record your sighting on iNaturalist.
Four Ladybug Prints by Beth Shepherd at the OSA Mini Print Exhibition
So my one ladybug print turned into four (Figure 2). Each print illustrates the subtle differences between them:
- Nine-spotted ladybug (native to but believed to be extirpated from Ontario)
- Two-spotted ladybug (native to Ontario but rare)
- Seven-spotted ladybug (alien species; arrived in Ontario in the 1980s)
- Asian multicoloured ladybug (alien species; arrived in Ontario in the 1990s; currently Ontario’s most abundant ladybug).
To make the small series of prints, I prepared four drypoint 10X10 cm plates using scrap plexiglas with acrylic medium. I printed them à la poupée with chin collé (red paper additions) using Akua Ink on Somerset Satin paper.
The four prints will be part of the OSA 10th International Miniature Print Biennale Exhibition, March 20 to May 11, 2025 at the J.W. Stellick Gallery located at 35 George St. in the ByWard Market, Ottawa.
